I never get what I want (To the proliferation of letters and a personal disbanding towards the repetitiveness of symptoms) – a public intervention by Daniel Marti

“I never get what I want” is an intervention by Daniel Marti concerned with the Museum Bärengasse’s public urban space, in dialog with Dimitrina Sevova and her exhibition proposal for “Unsettling the Setting. Playing, Plying, Squatting // Operating, Owning, Occupying – or rather?” The intervention ends in a performative discussion between Daniel (the artist), Dimitrina (the invited and inviting curator), and the audience. “I never get what I want” is part of the curatorial proposal by Dimitrina Sevova,

* uncanny: corresponds to German “unheimlich” (literally: unhomely), an estrangement of “heimlich” (literally: homely), meaning clandestine, secretive, furtive. Theorized by Ernst Jentsch (1906) and later by Sigmund Freud (1919), with reference to E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman, and later re-read by Hélène Cixous.

The intervention will start at 15:00h in front of Gasthaus zum Bären, follow Bärengasse and Talackerstrasse to Paradeplatz, and from there, via Bleicherweg reach Schanzengrabenpromenade. If the weather is good, it will continue on to the park of Völkerkundemuseum, and return to Bärengasse along Basteiplatz. The bad-weather route would return to Gasthaus zum Bären straight from where Schanzengrabenpromenade and Bärengasse cross.

International Public Symposium, 14/15/16 November 2013, around the notion of play, its processual (diagrammatic) and political and aesthetic potential in times of cognitive capitalism and its mechanisms of control over life and the urban environment.

ZHdK, Pfingstweidstrasse 6, 3rd floor, 8005 Zürich

The Diagrammatic Practice of the Micropolitical –
the Spatio‐temporal Expression of Play
between Power, Knowledge and the Aesthetics of Existence

In conjunction with the a-disciplinary project consisting of a platform of irregular non-serial events, screenings, public readings, performances, talks, urban interventions and other ephemera, on the theme of Opportunities for Outdoor Play? Playgrounds – New Spaces of Liberty (The Question of Form) ‹ outdoorplay.tumblr.com ›, curated by Dimitrina Sevova at Kunsthof Zürich between March and October 2013 in cooperation with Elke Bippus, Franziska Koch and the Bachelor Media & Art, specialization Fine Arts of the Zurich University of the Arts.

In printable layout as PDF: program (PDF 456 KB), abstracts and bios (PDF 3.03 MB), curatorial text (PDF 37 KB), and also a brochure (PDF 2.62 MB) we published, gathering all the information about the symposium and featuring the text of Maurizio Lazzarato's lecture.

Kunsthof in cooperation with INTERCUT and Praktiken der künstlerischen Intervention at Main Auditorium on 31 October 2013, 18:30

During his artist talk at the Main Auditorium of ZHdK, hosted by Kunsthof in cooperation with INTERCUT and «Praktiken der künstlerischen Intervention», Motta will present a selection of works from the past decade to discuss his interest in self-representation as a tool of personal and collective social empowerment, in conversation with the public, moderated by Prof. Carmen Mörsch.

The two events at Kunsthof on 19 and 20 July, Kunsthof Casino and Kunsthof Playschool, are a double homage to Michel Foucault and Jorge Luis Borges. To Michel Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France (1978-79) on the liberal art of government and modern governmental technology in which Foucault focuses on two forms of neo-liberalism: German post-War liberalism and the liberalism of the Chicago School. And to Jorge Luis Borges’ short story The Lottery in Babylon (1941), in which with the power of fictional ambiguity he tells the story of the Game of chance as the Game of life with its one bio-natural law determining the cosmos.

The event is composed of urban interventions, drifting walks, strolls and performative situations and other means of cacophonic molecular machinic becoming, affected by dramatizing and diagrammatizing practices of the political forms of coordination mapping singularities. The event is oriented towards the politics of location and micropolitical locomotion as an a-signifying process animating the vital multiplicity of organization of ethico-aesthetic living forms.

2012-08-01 - 2012-09-12: The main exhibition of the Sinopale 4, with a series of performances and events, co-curated by Aslı Çetinkaya, Elke Falat, Işın Önol and Dimitrina Sevova in Sinop, Turkey (with additional curatorial contributions by Beral Madra, Sean Kelly and Janet Kaplan).

2012-01-08 - 2012-02-05: An exhibition project as a result of a long-term research and collaboration between the artists Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Gisèle Schindler, Riikka Tauriainen, and the curators Işın Önol and Dimitrina Sevova. At Wäscherei Kunstverein Zürich, Dienerstrasse 70, 8004 Zürich.

Opening: Sunday, 2012-01-07, 19h00, with a reading
of Antonin Artaud and Italo Calvino.

With an introductory presentation, and excerpts from different Tati films, and the documentary The Magnificent Tati by Michael House (2009).
Find here the introductory text by Dimitrina Sevova (PDF, 100 KB).

2010-12-07, 20h00: at Corner College (Perla-Mode), Langstrasse 84 / Brauerstrasse 37, 8004 ZürichTheory Tuesday organized by Philip Matesic, selected and presented by Dimitrina Sevova
With an introductory presentation, excerpts from different Surrealist films, and a program of short films.

2010-10-01 - 2010-11-21: A group thematic show in two chapters curated by Dimitrina Sevova, which takes a look at various forms of reflection on aesthetic possibilities and political implications of individual stories of ordinary people in relation to society at large. At White Space | Raum für aktuelle Kunst, Militärstrasse 76 (backyard, entrance via Kanonengasse), 8004 Zürich.

Opening of First Chapter: Friday, 2010-10-01, 19h00.Opening of Second Chapter: Friday, 2010-10-29, 19h00.

2010-04-09 - 2010-04-25: A group show investigating the ethical-aesthetic-political aspects of human-animal relations, curated by Dimitrina
Sevova at Perla-Mode, in conjunction with a mirror exhibition at Dienstgebäude, Ich Mensch! (Du Tier), curated by Isabel Reiss and Cathérine Hug, and a common series of special events.

2009-12-03 - 2007-12-16: Dimitrina
Sevova's documentary art film "Unbeschreiblich weiblich" is featured at the This Human World human-rights film festival 2009 at the Schikaneder cinema in Vienna, Austria.

Idea and co-ordination: Dimitrina Sevova, with the active support and inspiration of Anna Frei, Anne Käthi Wehrli and Lucie Kolb and the entire offpride queer festival organizing working group and queer scene

2008-06-09 - 2008-06-30: Dimitrina
Sevova's series of three photographic self-portraits as a drag king, "All Power Is Theater! Female Masculinity", has been short-listed in the All About Him! project (initiated and curated by Ventsislav Zankov) and will participate in the exhibition in front of the Ivan Vazov Theater in Sofia, Bulgaria. Ten of the works in the exhibition will then be selected to be realized as billboards in the streets of Sofia later in the year.